Saturday 3 May 2014 14.56 EDT
First published on Saturday 3 May 2014 14.56 EDT

Felix Magath said he is desperate for the chance to lead his side back to the Premier League after suffering one of the worst days of his managerial career. The German had never been relegated before his Fulham suffered an abject 4-1 defeat against Stoke City that sealed their fall to the Championship.

Magath, who took over from Rene Meulensteen in February, could not understand why Fulham lacked the fighting qualities he was famous for from his spells managing Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg and Schalke 04.

"We have to talk about our situation. When I signed it was clear we had to change something," he said. "The club was at the bottom of the table and things developed in the last weeks, but it was not enough.

"It is one of the worst days I ever had. I will speak to the owner and we can start to come back. I want that chance. You can imagine this is one of the worst days I have ever had. I was very confident that we could avoid relegation, until today. I was convinced that we would have a great chance to avoid it."

Magath was unable to motivate his side at the break despite trailing by just one and given a rousing reception from his own fans. "In Germany we would say we had a 'blackout'," he said. "We had no chance from the beginning, we were not in the game. The team felt too much pressure, we could not run, pass or play. We were never being in the game – we had no chance. At half-time I tried for sure.

"In the dressing room at half-time, they seemed to fight. Nobody said a word at the end, everybody looked down at the floor. There were some tears. But I have to take responsibility and I apologise for not managing the situation. For the fans, I say sorry for this bad performance, it was not right for fighting against relegation. It's not that the players don't want to fight, they could not. They were not for that situation."